SCR rings in holiday season

When you’ve seen all 26 productions of South Coast Repertory’s annual holiday treat, “A Christmas Carol” (including several visits to the 1984 incarnation in which your 11-year-old son participated), you tend to look for the subtlest of differences from one year to another.

This time around, director John-David Keller has ratcheted up the intensity of Jerry Patch’s adaptation of Charles Dickens classic -- not just for the central character of Ebenezer Scrooge (once again delivered superbly by Hal Landon Jr.), but a few of those around him as well.

Landon’s coal-hearted miser delivers his “bah, humbugs” with a bit more venom than usual in the show’s early moments, cowing those Christmastime revelers around him. This makes his eventual conversion after a “spirited” night all the more rewarding.

His underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit (Daniel Blinkoff), also appears more joyful as he prepares to celebrate the season with limited resources. And Don Took’s always-menacing ghost of Scrooge’s old partner, Jacob Marley, makes the walls as well as his chains rattle, presenting a truly frightening specter as he turns up the intensity full blast.

One constant performance is Richard Doyle’s ghost of Christmas past, a wise messenger who smoothly transports Scrooge into his childhood and unearths the roots of his heartless penury. Timothy Landfield is an ebullient ghost of Christmas present, awaking the old miser to the merriment around him.

Director Keller joins in the fun as Scrooge’s first employer, Mr. Fezziwig, and delivers a joyous interpretation, along with SCR veteran Martha McFarland as his equally jolly wife (they also double as charity solicitors). Art Koustik returns in the familiar guise of Joe, a grizzled street scavenger.

Howard Shangraw, who has grown up with the show and once played the teen-aged Ebenezer, again scores mightily as the miser’s joyful nephew, Fred. Hisa Takakuwa is splendid as Fred’s somewhat reticent wife, while Jennifer Parsons is eminently believable as Cratchit’s spouse -- both wary of the reborn Scrooge on Christmas Day.

The Cratchit youngsters are appealing -- particularly Will Peterson as the perennially hungry Peter. Chloe Mercado and Alexandra McCue function splendidly as his sisters and Elisabeth Smith bends gender as an engaging Tiny Tim. Madison Dunaway is excellent as Scrooge’s teen flame, Belle, attracting and then repelling Travis Vaden’s young Ebenezer.

Technically, the show continues to impress (though a recalcitrant scrim curtain caused some anxious moments opening night). Thomas Buderwitz has recreated Cliff Faulkner’s timeless scenic design, while Dwight Richard Odle’s costumes and the lighting effects of Donna and Tom Ruzika continue to shine and Drew Dalzell’s amplified sound design is a commanding presence.

There’s really no better way to kick off the holiday season than a visit to SCR’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol,” which is becoming as timeless as the material itself. It’s a truly joyous tradition.

IF YOU GO

* WHAT: “A Christmas Carol”

* WHERE: South Coast Repertory Segerstrom Theater, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa